


The Forbidden Question

by ReadyForTeddy



Category: Pocket Monsters: Sword & Shield | Pokemon Sword & Shield Versions
Genre: Attempt at Humor, Best Boys, Childhood Friends, Childhood Memories, Crack, Fluff, Gay, Hop is happy boi, I'm Bad At Tagging, M/M, One Shot, Reminiscing, Romance, Short & Sweet, They head over heels and they don't even know it, Transhipping, time capsule
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-17
Updated: 2020-10-17
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:01:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27069790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ReadyForTeddy/pseuds/ReadyForTeddy
Summary: Hop reckons he's found something rather exciting to show Victor, but Victor is distracted by some thoughts of his own.HopxVictor fluff/crackfic/oneshot because they are best bois who deserve love~
Relationships: Hop/Masaru | Victor
Comments: 2
Kudos: 40





	The Forbidden Question

**The Forbidden Question**

"Victor! Come _on!"_ Hop enthuses, tugging at my sleeve. "Mate, you _have_ to see! It's awesome!"

I rub my eyes, blearily. Heaven knows what we're doing, or why. All I know is that Hop woke me up this morning, so insistent, so keen. He'd _seen_ something, apparently. And so, he'd come pounding at my door, waking up my entire family in the process, with no regard for the fact that some people simply don't get up at 7am.

"What is it?" I ask again, dragging my feet across the mud. We seem to be heading towards some sort of field, that I don't recognise.

"It's a surprise!" Hop reminds me, sounding rather like an excited puppy. "Don't worry. It's a good surprise. A _great_ surprise! But come on, come on!"

Since I unwittingly became champion, Hop has been different. Vying for my attention, almost. Yesterday, he dragged me out to show me what he and Sonia had discovered about the reason behind young psyducks holding their hands to their heads. (Apparently, it was to do with migraines. I was rushed around too much to take it in.) Just the day before that, Hop had caught me in the street, extremely excited to show me a blue shard of something he'd found. Granted, it _was_ a fancy blue shard, and it did sell for a lot in the local Pokémon centre, but I've never been much of a geologist myself, and neither has he.

I think he's trying to impress me.

Maybe because I'm the champion now? Maybe, that title makes me seem intimidating, stronger than him? Maybe Hop is under the delusion that I'm extremely popular now? (I'm not - since coming home, not a single person has treated me differently, save my mother, who insists on referring to me as 'her little champion', and Gloria, who mockingly does the same.)

But either way, he doesn't need to impress me, and I resolve that I need to make that extremely clear, today. That we're still equal. That he's still, and always will be, my best mate.

That's not all that's on my mind, though, concerning Hop. Oh, man. It's stupid - it's something really stupid. But there's a question. A _forbidden_ question, as I've been calling it in my head. And I need to ask it, because I just have to know the answer. Simple as that. I'm not sure I can wait any longer.

Hop pushes open a great wooden gate, and with a mock-bow, he leads me through it.

"What are we looking for?" I pester, and Hop bumps against me, gleefully.

"Arceus, you're bad at this 'surprise' thing," he laughs. "You'll know when you see it, yeah?"

"Yeah," I echo, not entirely convinced. I swear, it had better not be a fossilised lump of wood, or anything remotely lame. Hop and I, we don't do lame, and that's that.

We careen down the hill, Hop in the lead, me just lagging behind. Again the _forbidden question_ teases at me - but I bite it back. I have other things on my mind.

"Here it is!" Hop announces, screeching to a halt.

I stop and look.

It's a boulder.

I wish I was joking - but it's literally a boulder.

I cock my head to the side. "Hop, what is this?"

He points at it, excitedly. "Don't you see? Look - look a little closer!"

I frown, peering in. At first, my observations seem futile, but then, but _then…_

Huh?

There's an inscription on it. It's faint, it's difficult to make out, but someone had gone to the liberty of inscribing something into a random boulder in the middle of a random field.

"What do you think it is?" Hop asks, keenly.

"I don't know… I thought this was supposed to be a surprise? It just looks like someone's scraped a stone against this rock."

Hop stares. "It's a map, silly! It's obviously a map of the field!"

I look again. I suppose he might be right - there's the shape, around the outside, and could those be trees marked on? But it's not entirely convincing.

"So? Someone probably just got really bored."

Hop's expression turns slightly put out, before he perks up again, jabbing his finger against the map. "Look!"

"What?"

"Is that what I think it is?"

I furrow my eyebrows, wondering what on earth he might have seen now. It's all a little blurry; my mother had long since suspected that I need glasses, and recently, I've been coming to that conclusion too. Unfortunately, when I'd confided this in Hop, he'd found the whole idea rather amusing which, to be fair to him, it is. Kind of.

"It's an X!" Hop exclaims, exasperated. "X marks the spot! What if there's treasure of some sort here?"

That piques my interest.

"How do we find out?" I ask, keenly. "Do you have shovels-? Or - or you could get Wooloo to help us dig!"

"Great idea!" Hop pulls out a familiar pokéball from his back pocket. He throws it forth, and out bursts Hop's best friend (besides me) looking better and fluffier than ever.

I greet the sheep with a ruffle of his wool. Wooloo has always been friendly towards me, and I secretly suspect that Hop told him to.

"We're going to find some treasure!" Hop tells Wooloo, keenly. "You up for that, boy?"

Wooloo's ears prick up with interest. "Mehhhh!"

I smile. "Sounds like we're good to go!"

Hop begins to direct the action. "Vic - you check the map, find where the treasure is buried, and take Wooloo over. I'll grab a couple shovels from home!"

He dashes away - and I have to smile, as I watch him leave. He's always a laugh when he's in a good mood like this, and, treasure or not, I have a feeling that we'll have a good time with this search. 

I observe the map. The 'X' seems to be directly to the right of the nearest tree (a huge oak). That seems simple enough, so I jump up, and Wooloo obediently follows me over to the spot.

Hop rushes back, his face red and sweltering from excursion. He easily tosses me a shovel. "Got one! Let's get digging!"

After a quick scan to make sure that no farmers will be too angry if we turn this field inside out, we get to work. It's rained a lot recently, so it's not too hard of a job, with the soil all soft and malleable. Wooloo helps with the occasional kicking of some dirt out of our slowly developing hole, and it's 15 minutes or so before Hop's shovel makes a _clank_ against some metal.

"We got something!" Hop cheers. He's loving this - I can tell. Whatever this treasure is, it had better be good, or I fear he may be quite disappointed.

We dig the dirt around the outside, revealing what looks to be some sort of steel box. Hop intelligently levers it out with his shovel, and soon, we're sitting exhausted, the box next to us on the field.

"What do you reckon it is?" Hop asks, eyeing it intently. "I say there'll be gold in there, loads of gold. We can sell it to the museum, and get rich!"

"We'll see," I laugh. He's always racing at 100 miles an hour. Ever since we became friends, it's like he's living 10 minutes ahead of me. 

He runs his hands over it, looking for some kind of seam, but his face falls. "There's no way into this thing!"

"Mehhhh!"

Suddenly Wooloo charges at it - and there's an almighty noise as he makes impact - and the box falls to the floor, splitting open-!

There's a moment of silence.

I examine the fallen contents, confused. It seems to be a mix of tons of stuff; a really old looking pokéball, an expired hyper potion, a yo-yo, and a _ton_ of photographs.

"It must be a time capsule!" I realise.

Hop picks up a photo, and his eyes soften. "Aw. Come and have a look at this."

I move up beside him, to examine it. It's black and white, it must be really quite old, and I can make out what looks to be two boys, around our age, their arms around one another, smiling like it's the best day in the world.

"Who do you think they were?" I ask, curiously.

"Lucas Gideon and Erland Cooper," Hop replies, promptly.

"How do you know?"

He points to a pair of names, at the bottom of the photograph. I blush, feeling foolish.

"Are the photos all of them?"

I pick others up, and sure enough, it's the same two boys, just in different places. There's a photo on the beach, there's a photo in the Pokémon centre, there's all sorts. It's sweet, really. I wonder what's become of them now?

"We should do that," Hop says, suddenly. "We should get a load of old photos and do the same - make a time capsule. Then in the future, people like us can dig it up and see what life was like in those times."

I beam. "That's a great idea! Have you got any photos?" 

Hop nods. "Loads - my mother takes photos all the time, sometimes when we're not looking."

"That's kind of weird - but cool!"

He jumps up. "I'll run and get them! Have you got anything you want to put in?"

I think. "Well, yeah, some bits and pieces. How about we meet back here in 30 minutes with the stuff?"

"Sounds good to me!"

...

30 minutes later, we're back.

Hop opens up the silver box, and I place inside some items - a shirt, a pokéball, a mini figurine of a Pikachu, just little things like that which won't be missed too much. Hop brings out the photos, and makes to put them in, but I stop him.

"Can I see them, first?"

He nods, slightly awkwardly. "Oh - sure."

I huddle up next to him. I've always liked reminiscing on past memories, especially ones with my best mate.

 _But then,_ tingles the back of my mind. _Why haven't you asked the forbidden question yet?_

Pushing those thoughts down, I look at the photos, as Hop shows them. There's us outside Hop's house, his older brother Leon presenting us with starter Pokémon - I don't remember anyone taking a photo there?! But there's also Hop and I, grinning childishly as we nearly enter the long grass for the first time, there's us on our very first day of school, and then, to top it off, me delivering the final hit on Wooloo to become the Champion. 

Hop blushes upon the last one. I guess I've never really considered how it felt to be on the losing end of that. He was a worthy competitor, always giving his all, he fought until the very end, in front of that giant crowd. 

I couldn't be more proud.

Hop puts the photos together in a neat stack, before dropping them into the box. "They're sweet. I forgot how weird your teeth were, when we were kids."

I blush. "They weren't _that_ weird - at least I didn't have dodgy shoulder length hair, like you."

It's his turn to blush, and he playfully shoves me. "It was fashionable at the time."

"Yeah, maybe in the 90s, before you were born."

"Hey!"

Grinning, I shut the lid of the capsule. I wonder what people will think, when they see the contents. I wonder if people will remember me, in the future. Truth be told, I'm still riding the wave of being the champion. Will I retain that title until then? I suppose there's only one way to find out. 

Hop drops the time capsule into the hole, and Wooloo efficiently pushes all the dirt back over it. Hop and I set about flattening it all down, so it doesn't look too suspicious.

Hop beams. "Perfect."

"Perfect," I agree. 

Our eyes meet. For some reason, butterflies rise up in my chest, as I see the stunning golden orbs before me. I've always been jealous of Hop's eyes. They're such nice eyes.

My heart pounds.

I clear my throat. "Hop - there's something - a question - I've been meaning to ask for a very long time."

A grin settles on his face. "Oh yeah?"

"..."

I close my eyes momentarily, to still myself. What if he's offended? What if he gets angry? Surely he wouldn't… right?

"What's the question?" Hop asks, nervously.

I take a deep breath.

This is it.

"...Is your hair naturally purple, or is it dyed?"

…

Silence falls.

Hop blushes. "Oh, uh - it's natural. All the hair on my body is purple."

"Oh."

It was that easy? Asking the forbidden question was that easy? After all this time! I curse myself. Of course I made it all seem more scary than it had to be. And he wasn't offended, he wasn't upset, he answered. It's all natural. I didn't think it was possible to have naturally purple hair, but then again, Hop has never been one to follow the rules.

I give a wry smile.

"Will you be my boyfriend, by the way?" Hop asks.

"Oh! Sure!" I reply, happily. "That's a great idea!"

…

…

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> This is dumb, and I'm not sorry about that.


End file.
